| The Tories - “Don’t let us waste time talking about things
in the last century!” - still have much to answer for
despite New Labour’s eight years in power. Our society has
degraded when measured over many cultural indices (duty not
rights, proven values not ‘modernity’, responsibility not
‘my share’ materialism), of more importance surely than
rising incomes and accumulated wealth?
Subject to a flood of moulded, manipulated and slanted
‘information’ as never before, the educated sections of our
electorate are overall surely confused, unable to trust any
statistics, any trumpeting of “modernisation successes” - in
education, NHS, immigration, law and order.... the list of
New Labour’s non-achievements run on and on. I refer here to
matters which cause me pain in view of the magnificent
potential and availability for success in this day and age
and civilisation.
The media everyday report on many other areas of
non-achievement, but consider these which cause me to shake
my head:
- a million young people are neither in education nor
work
- crime victims most likely in number to be UK
citizens than anyone else in Europe
- a million violent crimes recorded last year
- a 60 per rise in young offenders since 1997
- a million people, most suffering non-high-tech
afflictions are still on hospital waiting lists
- many hundreds of patients frightened and vulnerable
at any one time being ‘queued’ without dignity on
hospital trolleys
- elderly people increasingly stuck in hospitals after
recovery (because local Care Homes are closed down
unable to finance EU regulations)
- two million pensioners near or below the poverty
line
- only one out of three doctors UK-born and trained,
two-thirds from abroad (and all gratefully welcomed)
- five out of 10 nurses are from abroad, not UK-born
(again, thank you for coming! though your own countries
could surely benefit from you there?)
- hospitals increasingly are having to house elderly
patients who have recovered but cannot find Care Home
places as more Homes are being closed down (not viable
because of EU regulations).
- refusal to re-instate hospital responsibility for
its own in- house cleaning teams (MRSA burgeons
meanwhile; and we cannot forget that the Tories
privatised cleaning services)
- the slow re-introduction of Matrons in hospitals (we
should double the 3,000 already in place, AND ensure
they get full respect and power over bureaucrats)
- the even slower decimation in the huge numbers of
hospital bureaucrats (whose priorities, such is human
nature will always, subconsciously, be job preservation
- their own)
- the stress wear and tear inflicted on thousands of
railway users every day (in spite of New Labour’s
pouring billions into the networks, one in five trains
still arrive late, delays having doubled since 1997)
Equally disturbing is the vast increase in young children
devoid of a father in single parent homes (from divorce,
partnership break-up, or immature young girls’ choice),
fathers who have to get court orders so as to meet with
their children, untrained parents who have modern benefits
of money and material products yet who, for whatever ‘fate’
are unlearned, untutored, de-sensitised, ignorant and unable
to cope effectively.
 On the other hand, in America, a new book says, “Life is
getting better for everyone.” In other words, what we
‘understand’ and ‘perceive’ is all a mirage: living
standards are rising....standards are far better than those
of previous generations... it is evidently so, but to set up
a ‘a new Department to ‘consult the wise’ on how to
mitigate, alleviate human misery would
be ‘Government waste’ with more honour in it than the above
failures.
-----------------------
Brown, underneath his old Labour dogma, wants only to become
a memorable figure. He is said to be a ‘lucky Chancellor’.
Now that
he is in great financial impasse in his own country, and a
certainty for the sack, he would like to be considered ‘the
saviour of Africa’.
His self-lauded ‘Economic and financial success’? Brown
inherited a successful even booming economy from the
Conservatives, and it is true that he held a tight grip over
expenditure for several years.
But his Tory predecessors laid the foundations. Without that
secure inheritance, he and Blair, both completely
inexperienced and untrained for High Office, would surely
have sunk.
What has been the result of a manifesto which gave promise -
whatever the actual words - of none to modest tax increases?
More than 60 hidden ‘stealth’ taxes.
And his infamous and devastating ‘raid on Pensions’ is
playing its part in the new pensions environment,
life-devastating in its impact for large numbers of the
older electorate. (More than 80 per cent of the elderly now
say they have no confidence in the future of pensions - “It
is a mess, with little hope of recovery.”
Unfunded liabilities, in the pensions industry, are
estimated between £425 billion and £650 billion. One does
not blame Labour, old or new, completely for the Pensions
calamity. The Conservatives did little before them; I recall
being told by a tutor in the 1960’s that “disaster was
coming, with the ageing population, and how were we to solve
this impasse?”
But aren’t politicians supposed to earn their earthly glory
by meeting society’s problems with practical solutions?
Work on and retire later, perhaps at 70? This solution is
mirage, as millions know who have been chopped off,
ruthlessly, in redundancy by big business, when in their
Fifties. They have lost ten years of pensions savings and as
they move into their Sixties the opportunities for new work,
even part-time jobs, vanish through Ageism.
But Brown has no answers to an almost perennial: funding of
your elderly population, in a civilised manner. In the UK,
large numbers of elderly would not under pain of death claim
means-tested benefits - I would not, would Blair, Brown,
Howard?
Germany and Italy and Spain may by 2020, according to
financial specialists, descend into almost “fiscal
bankruptcy” over their burgeoning retired population, I
stress may be.
And because we are ‘in’ the EU, deeper each year under
Blair, we will be drawn into helping to pay for other
countries’ pensions debacles. Brown’s stealth tax on
pensions may have to be withdrawn.
MPs in Westminster have voted themselves extraordinary
pensions benefits, and public sector worker unions are at
full blast over possible cuts to their formerly
‘gold-plated’ entitlements. Abuse of money, sex and power
are always the evils and like the Conservatives, New Labour
has its self-indulgent politicians!
The Chancellor has strategically ignored the unedifying
greed of Directors rewarding themselves huge personal
increases for business failure. And again no action, as the
major UK banks ratchet up multi-billion-pound profits....
while imposing fees from withdrawals from High St
holes-in-the wall cash machines.
As for petrol, the basic ingredient of modern lifestyle for
millions of ordinary people? He takes 75p from every £1 paid
at the pumps.
 A huge raft of people exist on benefits, some
- sensibly if
not morally justified - unable, unwilling to take jobs which
would pay them less per week. While New Labour has increased
the minimum-wage, millions more - the hidden aspect of his
vaunted “full employment” - survive on low-pay and are
forced to take second jobs, to make ends meet.
Meanwhile, the country on the surface appears to be “doing
well economically” particularly in financial services sector
which contributes £8 billion annually in corporation tax.
Yet under Brown, the future promises debt and more debt
which the taxpayer will have to repay. Brown has a black
hole of £20 billion or more in his calculations which could
well mean further stealth tax grabs.
And how is the Chancellor helping us prepare for longer-term
assault from the relentless expansion in products, capacity
and skills of India and China - both threats likely to
disrupt EU future prosperity also? No answer. It seems that
this is being left to the EU to instigate.
(However, according to one financial sooth-sayer, “Britain
is now better placed to meet the main challenges of global
economic competition” - this good news from a New Labour
strategist! Businesses in Britain have become more
competitive. They still do not innovate enough. But our
flexibility of product, labour and capital markets has been
increased.)
Because he has wanted to be No 1, Brown has taken a ‘sit on
the fence’ characterisation regarding Europe. Not many
condemnations from him, though as an old-style Labourite,
Europe would not be his natural destination.
Thousands of British businesses have gone into closure or
bankruptcy under the blizzard of regulations from Brussels.
Examples are A-Z, from abattoirs to electrical products,
butchers to swingeing new fire, health, safety Regulations
affecting a most tragic sector - the Retirement Homes for
the elderly, forced to close in their hundreds.
Brown will surely be remembered as the Chancellor who
reportedly said he “could not ever again believe anything
his Leader told him.”
He will also be remembered for what many see as a competent,
uninspired and ruthless ‘fortress occupation’ of the
Treasury. His legacy will be higher ‘hidden’ taxation and
lower pensions.
And still he may take over from his Dear Leader to become
Prime Minister. Unless there is a staggering shift against
New Labour’s failures in the coming General Election.
-------------------------
Howard is a nice, balanced man but he is reportedly “for the
EU but wanting change” - hardly EU-shattering! And
suggesting he would collapse like a political house of cards
should the Electorate suggest otherwise. He is truly, as
befits the night, a political middle of the road shadow-man.
Already it is voiced that another Tory debacle at the polls
will raise another to the leadership.
Yet the Conservatives are stirring. Howard has a most
promising, brightly-imaginative (some say OTT) young
executive in Letwin. But policies tackling causes not merely
symptoms are, as with New Labour, few. And Howard remains
silently pro-Europe.
The best he can offer, on behalf of the Conservatives, is to
“take back” some of the EU’s powers. That would be illegal,
as Blair and previous Conservative governments had given
away our rights to independence in so many areas.
 In the run-up to the General Election, millions in this
country are surely muttering, “These Conservatives could do
not worse than this New Labour.”
They perceive that all this government offers the country is
the promise that its Work-in-Progress will eventually bring
nirvana - and a new promise of another blizzard of Reform,
Reform, Reform! when it wins.
Total withdrawal from the EU Monster, but not from trading
with Europe (we buy twice as much from Europe as we sell
them) seems a better bet for the long run? Especially if a
two-level, two-speed EU seems very likely, within five to 10
years?
--------------------------
Churchill and De Gaulle warned
Winston Churchill warned against us being “in Europe”. That
was in 1931 and in 1946. De Gaulle also saw that Britain’s
place was not in Europe and said so (he twice slammed the
door shut to our entry). That was in 1963 and 1967.
Much has changed, for “England” since 1963. Yet it could be
the taciturn, courageous leader of France at that time was
right in perpetuity? We cannot easily know. So many of our
freedoms have been destroyed by or authority given to the
Monster already.
The British people have never asked to agree to giving away
powers which now rule us from Brussels. Except for 1975
which is 30 years ago this June.
Then we voted to join/stay in ‘the Common Market’, having
been taken into the Community in 1973. We were asked “Do you
think the UK should stay in the EC, the Common Market? The
answer was Yes, to joining what the electorate thought was a
trading bloc. One UK politician said afterwards that “It was
a false prospectus and........ I could have faced
prosecution if...”
Another, noted for his honesty and integrity, described it
as a coup d’etat (.....by “a UK political leadership which
did not believe in popular sovereignty.”)
If the UK electorate vote in a third New Labour government
in 2005 then we may well be truly lost. Vigilance covered
over by the cloud of ignorance.
A thousand years of our unique traditions and culture, and
our still-evolving British Common Law made to vanish,
subordinated to unyielding acquis communautaire and all the
new rulings of the European Court of Justice.
But let’s look at the EU, and retrace, from the position
now.... |
£1,000 million often the
case.
